If Obama Is Serious

The writer says Israel has every right to defend itself -- but the US shouldn't support Israel's reactions to daily shellings if they somehow harm the general population. What nonsense! How would the writer get Hamas to stop their daily attacks on Israel? No shellings, no Israeli retaliation; a path to Peace opens. Bottom Line: If the Arabs would lay down their arms, there would be peace; if the Israelis laid down their arms -- there would be no Israel.

The Israel/Hamas situation requires the wisdom of Solomon, as these two warring factions insist on cutting the baby in half to satisfy their own lust for territory and dominance. If they can't agree to a fair and civilized resolution of the problem, America should cut off ALL financial and other support for either side , and let the chips fall where they may.

The Israel Lobby will crush anyone who is not 110% in favor of Israeli war crimes.

Obama needs to stay the course and not try to flex muscles to appease the Hamas or the surrounding muslim nations bent on the destruction of Israel.. Even if he does try to get tough on Israel, who says that Israel would listen to the Obama administration or care about the dollars being given to them...

Survival outweighs anything that this future administration can threathen Israel with....

Deep Ear Canal said this morning that If money does not start flowing into Bill Clinton's foundation, Hillary is gonna make life very difficult for Israel.

He would need a "set" to get tough on Israel...Never gonna happen...LOL!!

Obama get tough with Israel? Hah. Hah. Hah. Hah. Dream on. Dream on. He is not called the Golden Calf for nothing.

Good article. It's about time that we start getting serious with Israel. For decades we have blindly given them billions of dollars and military equipment. Our policy has been Israel can do no wrong. Well, that hasn't exactly worked.

Israel has to stop the expansion of settlements and stop killing Palestinians like roaches whenever a rocket is fired. This kind of excessive response gets them nowhere.

Hamas does not care for their own people, to die fighting for Islam gains ones entry into the kingdom of heaven or some ancient BS that they seem to be hooked on. They knew what would happen and welcomed it then cried foul when people started getting killed, they cant have it both ways. Why arent people protesting agasint Hamas around the world?

Blah blah blah. The same people complaining because Bush took action in the past want something to be done about this comflict. Why should we the US do anything? It ain't our fight! Is that not what was said before?

The problem between Israilis and palestinians remind me one thing always ' which came first? Egg or chicken?' means 'who created the problem first? Palestinians or Israils?' NO right answer. They blame each other always! I think they should cease fire immediately and act sensibly to solve the problem. We have seen earlier as well that It doesnt bring any end of anything by killing innocent people in both sides. Please stop this nonsense and If you cant solve the problem, please contact with me. I have some solution from impartial point of view.

If they only want more then why did they walk out and in some cases push their own citizens out of Gaza in 2005? It seems that calling for the destruction of an entire state fits more with wanting more land.

nobody who wants to be president of the united states can get tough with israel. aipac and other likewise lobbies will push him out of the white house. look at the attacks you are getting with one article. imagine if you tried to tell israel to allow a little food or medicine into gaza or mabe slowdown the settlement building in the west bank. only in israel can you crtisize israel whereas here, you have to know that you will be attacked
i wish for once the american president will just ask israel to draw its borders, just take whatever land they want and once and for all declare what its borders are. they will never do that because they want it all and more
your article great and keep up the good work

Wow for a smart person who worked with six secretaries of state you seem naive and you don't explain how Obama should deal with Hamas and it's rocket attacks on Israel. And you seem to forget Hamas is a terrorist organization.

It's ridiculous how people like you keep trying any way possible to blame Israel for this conflict and all casualties related to it. What do you think our US response would be if one of our neighboring countries started indiscriminately lobbing rockets into our cities and civilian population?

It's ridiculous how people like you keep trying any way possible to blame Israel for this conflict, and all the casualties related to it. What do you think our 'immediate' response would be if one of our neighboring countries started indiscriminately lobbing rockets into our civilian populated cities?

I believe that the only solution is change in policies of US. The whole world is suffering economic and other consequences of US policies. We should change our basic policy of supporting wars all over the world. We can reestablish our strategy and become the good superpower of the world again with support of nations all over this world.
Please read the interesting discussion of Time with Avrum Burg, the scion of one of Israel's founding families (His father was the deputy speaker of the first Knesset, and Burg himself later became speaker of the legislature, and a member of Israel's cabinet) :
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869325,00.html